Research in Motion had a busy and productive week at CES and the company had finally unleashed its PlayBook tablets to the grubby hands of the masses to play, experience and enjoy. The company says that its PlayBook will be running on the BlackBerry Tablet Operating System, which is powered by QNX. QNX, known for [...]
Kevin Tofel and Engadget are reporting that RIM will be launching a 4G version of the RIM Playbook Tablet “this summer.” Interesting news on a number of fronts. First, as Xavier posted, folks are getting their hands on the device, so it does indeed exist. Second, Kevin is reporting that this seems to be a [...]
Our friend Avram Piltch got to spend some quality time with the BlackBerry PlayBook at CES 2011. The PlayBook isn’t expected to start selling for a few more months and RIM’s been relatively shy, keeping the PlayBook behind glass at trade shows more often than not. Avram wrote up his impressions after spending some time [...]
CES 2011 has really just officially kicked off but as always quite a bit of the big news has kicked off before the kick off. I may be premature here, but on the Tablet front (which is a big part of our beat after all) it looks like we are seeing a theme emerge that [...]
Thai phone-maker Spriiing is debuting its Smile Android smartphone with a front-facing QWERTY keyboard layout as a challenger to RIM’s BlackBerry phones and also Motorola’s Android handsets. As a more budget device, the Smile phone only packs in a QVGA screen, making it a direct challenger to the Motorola Charm, which has the same resolution [...]
2010 is gone and so is its hyped up characterization as The Year of the Tablet. As I’ve said many times, 2010 could be better described as The Year of the iPad than any generic Year of the Tablet. But now 2011 is here and with it there seems to be a collective memory loss [...]
In a statement that surely interrupted someone’s winter holiday, RIM yesterday qualified the earlier report by Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu that the BlackBerry PlayBook could be delayed while they sort out battery life issues. But did they they share anything new?
Electronista reports that Research in Motion could be struggling to get the battery life on their BlackBerry PlayBook up to competitive levels. Adding insult to injury is an earlier report on RIM’s initial reaction to the iPhone, also on the topic of battery life.
No, this list isn’t about gadgets and things. This wish list is about things I’d like to see happen in the mobile space. I’m an impatient an old and would rather see these things happen sooner rather than later. Here’s a link to last year’s wish list, and to the ones previous (here and here.) [...]
The old crystal ball is a bit tough to read this year. That’s not a bad thing because it means we’re heading into a year that no one really knows what’s going to happen. That means excitement ahead. 2010 can arguably be described as a year that set the table for exciting things to come. [...]
Microsoft is proudly announcing that it has sold 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 units and calls it a promising start. That’s a good number no matter how you slice it. However, as Ed Bott points out the question that everyone seems to be asking about smartphone sales these days is how many have been activated. [...]
RIM honcho Jim Balsillie in speaking on a recent earnings call says that “I think the Playbook redefines what a tablet should do.” He goes on to say that this is about better performance, Enterprise functionality (VPN, document viewing, and editing, etc…). OK, all well and good. I’m not seeing the redefinition here, and I’d [...]
In an investment call detailing third quarter earnings, RIM says that the BlackBerry PlayBook won’t be available until the first quarter in the U.S. initially. The 2011 launch date, still not clarified, may be March. According to the company, says that revenues for the PlayBook may not be accounted for until the following quarter, suggesting [...]
Research in Motion has launched updates to its BlackBerry Desktop Software for Windows and Mac. The Mac update now supports synchronization with BlackBerry 6 devices, like the newly launched BlackBerry Torch on AT&T or the BlackBerry Style on Sprint, and will allow users to switch devices and synchronize media–including music–over WiFi. Mac users can grab [...]
At the D: Dive Into Mobile event, Research in Motion co-CEO Mike Lazaridis says that the company’s QNX operating system will be coming to BlackBerry smartphones as soon as dual-core processors are available. The QNX operating system was unveiled for the company’s forthcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, which boasts a smooth operation with multimedia prowess and [...]
BGR has scored a demo with Research in Motion where the smartphone-maker showed off its BlackBerry PlayBook, which will launch in 2011. Unlike prior BlackBerry devices, which relied on the BlackBerry OS, the PlayBook utilizes an operating system from QNX, which boasts excellent responsiveness, multitasking, Flash playback, and great multimedia features. The user interface for [...]
Wow. That’s all I can say. I read some of the transcripts and watched some of the video from the D: Dive Into Mobile conference last night. Interviews with some of the big wigs who run the carriers and their strategies were nothing if not illuminating and one with RIM that equally sheds light on [...]
Tablets and Slates need Apps to gain traction and have a chance of making market inroads. RIM wants its PlayBook Tablet to be a success certainly and to try and ensure some of that, the Blackberry maker is offering developers a free Tablet. The offer of free hardware is for those who develop Apps that [...]
Research in Motion announced today that it acquired The Astonishing Tribe, or what some call the SWAT team of user interface design. BlackBerry’s UI is the butt of many jokes in mobile phone discussions. RIM might have some of the best devices for heavy communicators, but the UI is one major reason that many RIM-wielding [...]
While Android, iOS, and BlackBerry are current leaders in the smartphone war in the U.S., a recent Nielsen survey finds that men prefer Android as a platform while iPhones were favored by the female gender. However, in a market where iOS and BlackBerry have each captured 27 percent market share and Android trailing by 3 [...]
The RIM Playbook Tablet/Slate is opening eyes on a lot of fronts. One of those is security and encryption especially in the Enterprise sector. According to a Bloomberg report companies are already ordering or taking a serious look at the Playbook because of their experiences with Blackberry devices. On many levels that makes sense in [...]
Research in Motion’s been pretty shy when it comes to showing off the PlayBook. Back at DevCon 2010 we didn’t get to touch it and there weren’t any working units floating around the conference. That’s no longer the case. Even though RIM CEO Josh Balsillie wouldn’t give a live demo today at the Web 2.0 [...]
Research in Motion’s put together a video demo of the BlackBerry PlayBook’s web browser and how it stacks up against the iPad’s. Pages appear to load significantly faster on the BlackBerry PlayBook and of course you can run Flash on it, while iPad’s Safari experience is a Flash-free zone. Javascript animations appear quite a bit [...]
Research in Motion is rumored to be expanding its BlackBerry Torch franchise with a slimmer entry level model. While the Torch is basically a high-end model now that takes design cues from its high-end BlackBerry Bold franchise, an entry-level torch could more closely resemble a consumer-oriented BlackBerry Curve or Pearl. Details on the model are [...]
Rumors of a BlackBerry Storm 3 have been on-again, off-again as the future of the Storm franchise, at least in the U.S. under the helm of carrier Verizon Wireless, has been uncertain. The latest Storm 3 rumor has it that the 3.6-inch AMOLED Storm 3 will get some updated specs bringing it on-par with many [...]
Bloomberg is reporting that RIM’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie has teased a comment indicating that the Playbook Tablet will debut under $500. Of course that means Bloomberg is positioning that statement to mean head-to-head competition with the iPad. The fun part of the game is that the actual quote from Balsillie is “the product will be [...]
Enterprise BlackBerry users who are eyeing the BlackBerry 9780 should take a look at Tracy and Matt detailed review of the device, which will be headed State-side later this month. The Bold 9780 is an evolution of the original BlackBerry 9700 and has the design of its predecessor while adding more memory and a freshened [...]
Research in Motion’s PR folks sent over a longer video demo of the BlackBerry PlayBook being shown off at Adobe MAX. This video shows the BlackBerry PlayBook being used to view MRI images, viewing media in Adobe Air apps and playing Flash videos on YouTube. This is the first time that RIM has shown a [...]
Here’s a quick video that shows the Blackberry Playbook in action. Well, it kinda does. It shows off the UI a little bit. Yesterday’s news that the UI was built on Adobe UI makes this more than a curiosity. The video is the device being demoed at Adobe’s Max conference yesterday. The comment at the [...]
Adobe is set to role out Air 2.5 today, and it is making a big play to make its cross-platform development environment live on just about any device. As long as it isn’t an Apple iOS device. The idea behind Adobe Air is that it is an environment that allows Apps to be written once [...]
Apple CEO Steve Jobs made some pretty negative statements about the competition this week. At least one of Apple’s competitors isn’t taking the trash talk lying down. Research in Motion’s Co-CEO punched back at Jobs’ disparaging remarks about 7″ tablets and its BlackBerry smartphones. Here’s the fighting words from RIM’s CEO in full: RIM responds to Apple’s ‘Distortion [...]
While a lot of companies have made promises about media tablets this year, Apple’s the only one to sell such a device in any real volume. There are some Android tablets hitting the market and the BlackBerry Playbook was recently introduced. But for the time being, Apple’s the only one out there with a cohesive [...]
RIM’s generated a ton of buzz around the BlackBerry PlayBook, its 7-inch tablet device that debuted at DEVCON 2010 on Monday. A conference with thousands of BlackBerry developers and enthusiasts sure sounds like the perfect place to demonstrate the first BlackBerry device to break out of the smartphone form factor, but RIM took a different [...]
Yesterday I got a chance to take a look at the BlackBerry PlayBook at DEVCON 2010. Unfortunately, Research in Motion still isn’t ready to let us go hands on with the PlayBook, sandwiching three prototypes between glass and running a video loop. But it was close enough to get a good sense of the device. [...]
Having had your first taste of the BlackBerry Playbook, if you’re hungry for more, BlackBerry has us covered with a press release, full specs, and a fancy new web page.
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Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE Review: A Worthy Successor to the Original (Video)
When Sprint had debuted the original WiMax-capable HTC EVO 4G nearly two years ago, it was an instant hit on the Now network. Not only was the HTC EVO 4G the first 4G smartphone in the world taking advantage of Sprint’s then speedy WiMax network, but it brought some new features and pizzazz to the [...]
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